When at a loss for words and wisdom, it’s never a bad thing to turn to Confucius, who said: “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
Here we have the world’s best-selling plug-in hybrid.
Then in the 20th century, noted management guru Tom Peters had a different view: “If you’re not confused, you’re not paying attention.”
Life in the car business here in 2018 is anything but simple. If you take a good, focused look at the latest electrified rigs – like the five-seat Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) – the American Peters’ words ring far truer than those of the sixth-century Chinese teacher, editor, politician and philosopher.
Mitsubishi has a long history of producing odd and often half-measure electric vehicles. The sorry-looking wheeled phone booth called the i-MiEV is exhibit A. But the Outlander plug-in is something quite impressive.
Mitsu’s triumph is that that this Outlander is a stunning achievement in complexity that looks and drives like a very simple SUV. There’s a small gas engine (2.0 litres, 117 horsepower, 137 lb-ft torque) that teams with an electric motor (80 hp/101 lb-ft) to drive the front wheels through the kind of transmission you’ll be familiar with if you drive a ski-doo. There’s a second electric motor (80 hp/144-lb.-ft.) for the rears and like the fronts, power goes through a single-speed gearbox.
This being a limited-range EV (35 km or so, depending on driving conditions and regenerative braking), there is a 12kWh lithium-ion battery tucked in the central tunnel (recharged in 2.5 hours via a 220-volt outlet). (Note: the powertrain bits and pieces are warrantied for 10 years or 160,000 km.)
What the driver sees.
To sum up: one gas motor, two electrics, one battery pack and two transmissions. This adds up to all-wheel drive and a combined output of 200 hp and 250 lb-ft or torque. Of course, this AWD system has a mouthful-of-letters name: Super All Wheel Control or S-AWC.
Naturally, Mitsu loads this rig up with a phone app that allows you to monitor everything and control many things. Geeks will love it and I suppose if I paid the $42,998 price tag (to start), I would too.
As long as the small battery is charged, you can drive this Outlander in EV model only – the default mode. Or you can fire up the gas engine to generate electricity for the battery. Of you can use the gas engine as the driving force, with the EV parts helping when needed. At it’s best, you can do 0-100 km/hour in less than 11 seconds.
You can see and I hope appreciate the brainpower that has gone into all this – hardware — engines and batteries and gearboxes –and then the software that conducts everything so that all these bits and pieces sing like the gospel choir of plug-ins. This plug-in hits low and high notes perfectly and all together or at times separately. Simply amazing.
Dial up your preferred driving mode.
I mean, at times you can order up electric mode only, until you’re out of juice. Or you can drive around on gas while charging the battery. Or just use the gas engine, saving the battery for city core driving.
I applaud the genius here, but I can’t quite get a grip on the point of it all. It’s pretty easy to burn through 35 km of battery power and then you’re back to using gas for propulsion. Seem to me, this is a lot of complexity for marginal reward. And all the engines and batteries and gearboxes and such add plenty of weight and take up space which in a normal SUV would be used for cargo and cabin room.
I’ll just say that I paid a lot of attention to the Outlander plug-in and – and cheer it as an engineering achievement – but I am at least a little confused by the effort to deliver just 35 km of battery-only driving.
With respect to Winston Churchill, when it comes to plug-ins – not just Mitsubishi’s — never has so much been done by so many engineers in an effort to deliver so little benefit.
Very good seating.
2018 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV
Base price: $42,998.
Powertrain: gas engine (2.0 litres, 117 horsepower, 137 lb-ft torque); 2 electric motors (80 hp/101 lb-ft torque for the front; 80 hp/144-lb.-ft. torque for the rear; two one-speed transmissions, front and rear; 12kWh lithium-ion battery pack; combined output 200 hp/250 lb-ft torque.
Powertrain warranty: 10 years/160,000 km.
Drive: all-wheel.
Fuel economy (litres/100 km): 3.2Le combined.
Comparables: BMW X5 xDrive 40e, Volvo XC90 PHEV, Mercedes-Benz GLE 550e, Porsche Cayenne S-E Hybrid.
